(WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- A new play at the Goodman Theatre about an Assyrian family's experience immigrating to the United States shows how families fall apart and find each other again.
In tech rehearsal for “Layalina,” director Sivan Battat is working with the cast to tell the story of Layal and her family's experience emigrating from Baghdad.
Battat says Act One and Act Two take place in 2003 and 2020, before and after the family has relocated to the Chicago area.
"You watch how transformation and turmoil and grief and love and queerness and family plays out over the course of generations in a lifetime,” she says.
Atra Asdou, who plays Layal, says she hopes the show makes others feel included the way it did for her.
"I quit the theater because I kept playing maimed Iraqi girls written by non-Iraqi people. And one of the reasons why I'm over the moon honored to be a part of this is because of the feeling I get every day coming to work.
“And I hope that that feeling of not being alone or not having to code-switch or explain myself, I hope at the very least on a different branch that the audience's take that away that they can feel seen as well."
“Layalina” was written by Martin Yousif Zebari. It's playing at the Goodman Theatre through April 2.
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